Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators First Impressions

The Star Control games of the late '80s and '90s are among the most well-loved computer games of all time, so it's a bit odd that we haven't really seen their like since 1996, when the last Star Control game was released. But it appears that there's a worthy successor to Star Control emerging from Europe with Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. The original Space Rangers was never released in the US, but the sequel is coming to America in March courtesy of Cinemaware Marquee, and we recently caught a glimpse of what we can expect.

You can best think of Space Rangers 2 as a combination of Star Control and Sid Meier's Pirates! with some real-time strategy and role-playing thrown in. Your job is to create your own unique avatar and fly about the galaxy, doing pretty much whatever you want to do. You can live the life of a trader, be a pirate or mercenary, or just go and explore the unknown sectors of the galaxy. Heck, you can even run for planetary office and govern a planet if you want--though if you do, you'll need to make all sorts of decisions to keep your grip on power. Or, you can attempt to conquer planets by commanding giant robots on the battlefield. It sounds like a crazy and ambitious mix of gameplay, but judging from the very positive reception the game is getting in Europe, it apparently works.

When you start a game of Space Rangers 2, the game randomly generates a galaxy for you to play in, so you'll never play the exact same game again. After you create a character by choosing a race and a profession, you're dropped into a starship, and what's next is entirely up to you. You can set course for the nearest planet to get the latest news reports for clues about potential missions, or you can go zooming off through space and explore on your own. And how you make your living is up to you. You can engage in battles and scavenge parts off defeated enemies, or you can undertake missions or do trading runs to generate cash, which you can use to buy bigger ships, better equipment and weapons, and even maps to different sectors of the galaxy, unlocking them for exploration.

The dynamic universe means that there's a galaxy out there that's brimming with commerce and combat, and the game keeps track of dozens of non-player characters, as well as hundreds of planets populated by a wide range of races. Your relationship with all these different races depends on your reputation, so if you do some missions for the humans, you'll be on their good side, but if you prey on their vessels, you'll quickly earn their wrath, so you'll need to keep aware of your standing with each race. But there is one race you can't negotiate with (or even placate)--the dominators, an aggressive race of self-aware robots (kind of like Star Trek's borg) that show up every now and then. However, if you can take down a dominator ship, you'll be able to scavenge unique parts from the debris.

If there's an overarching "end" goal in Space Rangers 2, it's to explore the galaxy and finish off the dominators' home world. The exploration aspects of Space Rangers 2 also hearken back to Star Control. When you discover an uninhabited planet, you can send probes to orbit the planet. After they're done scanning the planet (it'll take a while, plus you'll need to send the probes into different orbits so they can scan the entire planet), you'll be able to recover anything valuable that they find. Or, if the planet is inhabited, you may undertake quests, such as a political quest to become the "leader" of the world. This plays out very much like an old-style adventure game, as you have to answer a series of questions that let voters gauge what your political views are. For instance, you'll be asked some what you think causes economic growth, or how much money should be spent on defense. There aren't any "wrong" answers to these questions, but you may alienate a key political group if have an opposing view. If you manage to get elected, you'll face even more questions as you get a chance to guide planetary policy. While it sounds pretty in-depth, this is all meant as a fun side quest, and you don't even need to do this if you don't want. But it's an example of just how many different types of gameplay there are in Space Rangers 2.

Another example deals with planetary combat. If you land on an enemy planet or if the enemy lands on your planet, you switch to a 3D real-time strategy mode. It's not as in-depth or as broad as traditional real-time strategy games, because you can only build defenses and custom-designed robots, but it's meant as a fun, fast-paced battle mode that lets you move units around the map and blow things up. Wipe out the enemy base and the planet is yours, and vice versa. Again, this is another completely optional mode that you don't even have to use, but it's there if you want.

Put all that together and you'll get a game that promises a huge amount of potential gameplay, along with pretty much unlimited replay value, because the galaxy is randomly generated each time you start a game. And Space Rangers 2 presents all this in a colorful, lighthearted style. You look down on the galaxy from a bird's-eye view, and everything rests on a flat plane, just like in Star Control. You can go from planet to planet within seconds (there are none of the long moments of waiting found in other space-exploration games), and the action has a very fast-paced, arcade-like feelt to it. Space Rangers 2 itself combines turn-based gameplay with real-time gameplay, so you don't need to have fast reflexes in order to win. Basically, the game features turns that last one day's worth of game time.. Between turns, the action pauses and you can give orders to your ship, such as to target another ship or go to a certain planet. Once you're done plotting your moves, the game simultaneously resolves all turns, so the system provides the best of both worlds: You have the depth and tension of turn-based gameplay, but also the satisfaction of seeing everything resolve in real time.

We had a chance to see only a fraction of the game in action, but we now understand all the favorable comparisons to Star Control. Like Star Control and Pirates!, Space Rangers 2 is a game that believes in giving you lots of interesting things to do, and the game has a quick pace to it to keep you hooked. We're very interested in getting our hands on the US version of the game when it ships in March, but we'll keep you up to date with any developments until then.